


stronger as a family

by TolkienGirl



Series: Vintage Winchesters: Season 1 Tags [20]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s01e20 Dead Man's Blood, Gen, POV Sam Winchester, Sam believes he's so ready for whatever's ahead, Winchester Family Feels (Supernatural), he has no idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27782032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: He won't mourn endings now.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & John Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Vintage Winchesters: Season 1 Tags [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1777720
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	stronger as a family

In the motel bathroom, Sam splashes water over his face. The mirror hovering above him is leprous and cracked. It haloes his face in green. There’s a stall shower behind him, the drain looking like something died in it.

No time for a shower, anyway. Vamp blood will have to dry and flake under his nails, this time. They’re heading out.

He shoves open the door—it sticks—and joins Dad and Dean where they’re stowing the last of the gear. The scent of gun-oil and mildew, mingling…that’s a hello and a goodbye in one. The beginning of another hunting trail, for as long as Sam has known what hunting is.

The end of an old life, for longer than he’s known what hunting could do.

Yet he won’t mourn endings now. He’s all keyed up, pulse high. _Giddiness_ , that’s the word that would spring to mind, if Sam was searching for one. He hasn’t felt like this since his last years of childhood, the ones stretched thin by an in-between hope. The time after finding out the truth about darkness and what roamed in it. The time before knowing that the life Dad and Dean seemed bent on living had nothing to offer but pain.

And now…

Sam isn’t a bright-eyed teenager. Sam’s known pain. He shoulders one of the duffels— _work to do_.

Dad and Dean aren’t talking fate and fury at the moment, though. They’re talking cars. 

Dean says, “What are you gonna do about the windshield, Dad?”

“See what I can do for cheap at the body shop down the road,” Dad answers. It’s like they never squared off. Like Dean never tested his tried-and-true loyalty.

_All due respect, that’s a load of crap._

Sam will need months he might not have to parse _that_.

They take the Impala, of course, and trail Dad to the body shop. Once there, they don’t join him: Dean turns off the car and they wait in the parking lot. The place (the whole town) is drab and dusty like a thousand others, but it makes Sam think of Bobby’s. He looks without looking at the Shell Oil drums lined up like sentries down one side of the garage. It’s been a long time since he saw Bobby, honestly.

“You good?” Dean asks. “That vamp bastard pinched you pretty tight.”

Sam’s hand flits instinctively to his neck. His windpipe’s sore, sure, but nothing that a few days won’t fade. “I’m good.”

Dad’s got some kind of makeshift plexiglass to be a quick ‘n dirty stand-in for proper repairs. Maybe they’ll be at Bobby’s sooner than later.

Although, now that Sam thinks of it, later is better. Better to keep the rest of the world out of their mess.

 _Giddy_. It actually makes him quiet: another change from childhood. He isn’t driven by a desire for anyone’s approval. He isn’t agreeing with Dad just to be a good son. They’re equals, the Winchester men. They’ll live and die as equals.


End file.
